Thursday, July 31, 2008

Joe Elliott, the lead singer of Def Leppard, was born in Sheffield, England in 1959.

Chuck D. of Public Enemy, was born in Roosevelt, N.Y. in 1960.

Adam Duritz, dread-locked singer with the Counting Crows, was born in 1964.

History:

The late Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead was born in 1942.

The Grateful Dead's LP "In The Dark" entered the Billboard album chart in 1987. It contained the group's only US Top 40 hit, "Touch Of Grey", which would reach #9.

The Carter Family, country's first superstar act, cut their first record in Bristol, Tenn in 1927.

In 1964, Billboard reported that sales of harmonicas were on the rise after artists like Stevie Wonder, the Beatles and the Stones started featuring it on their records.

Also in 1964, Rockabilly singer Johnny Burnette ("You're Sixteen") drowned in a boating accident on California's Clear Lake. He was 30.

The first Atlantic City Pop Festival kicked off in New Jersey in 1969. Over 110,000 customers paid $13 to hear such artists as Iron Butterfly, CCR, Jefferson Airplane, Three Dog Night, Little Richard, Janis Joplin, Santana, Procol Harem and Joe Cocker perform. Wow, what a lineup!

MTV made its debut at 12:01am in 1981. The first video to be shown was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. Fitting.

In 1987, MTV Europe was launched and the first video that was played was 'Money For Nothing' by Dire Straits which contained the appropriate line 'I Want My MTV.'

Chubby Checker's "The Twist" was released in 1960. By mid-September, it will be the number one record in the US. Record industry history was made when Checker's original hit recording re-entered the charts in the fall of 1961 and by January of 1962, was back in the number one position. It was the first record ever to hit number one on two separate occasions.

The title track from The Beatles' movie "A Hard Day's Night" topped the record charts on both sides of the Atlantic in 1964. The film was originally titled "Beatlemania," until producers heard an offhanded comment by Ringo Starr as he flopped into a canvas chair and said "It's been a hard day's night, that was."

In 1966, The Troggs accomplished the rare feat of having a Top Ten hit in both the UK and the US with different songs. In England, "With a Girl Like You" was a major hit, while in the US, "Wild Thing" led the Billboard chart.

The "Concert for Bangla Desh" was staged in 1971 to raise money for victims of famine and war in that country. The show featured George Harrison, with some help from his friends Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Ravi Shankar and some members of Bad Finger.

"Elvis - What Happened," an expose by two of Presley's former bodyguards, was published in 1977. It sat in bookstores almost unnoticed until Presley's death two weeks later. Then it sold more than three-million copies.

In 2002, a new book 'Show the Girl the Door' written by a former tour manager disclosed some strange demands by female acts. It revealed that Shania Twain would travel with a sniffer dog in case of bombs. Jennifer Lopez liked her dressing room to be all white, including carpets flowers and furniture. Cher would have high security rooms for her wigs. Janet Jackson would have a full medical team on standby including a doctor nurse and throat specialist and Britney Spears would demand her favourite Gummie Bear soft sweets.

The first Beatles Monthly Fan Club Magazine was published in 1963. It continued until 1969 and at its peak was selling 350,000 copies a month.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bob Dylan is opening up his vaults for the first time in three years, with his label announcing on Tuesday that it will issue a multi-disc album consisting of late-era outtakes, previously unreleased recordings and live tracks in October.

"Tell Tale Signs," the eighth installment in Dylan's "Bootleg Series," focuses on albums from the last two decades, ranging from 1989's "Oh Mercy" to 2006's "Modern Times."

Columbia Records will release "Tell Tale Signs" in three configurations on October 7: a standard two-disc package with 27 songs, a "limited edition" set with a bonus disc containing 12 songs; and a four-LP vinyl version including all the elements of the two-CD set.

Most of the tracks come from sessions for "Oh Mercy" and his 1997 comeback of sorts "Time Out of Mind." Selections from the former include a piano demo of "Dignity" and two alternate versions of "Most of the Time"; and from the latter, a live version of "Cold Irons Bound" recorded during Dylan's set at the 2004 Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee.

The sessions for his 1993 folk covers album "World Gone Wrong" have yielded "32-20 Blues," a tune billed as Dylan's first release of a Robert Johnson song.

Dylan's "Bootleg Series" launched in 1991 with a three-disc boxed set collecting rare and unreleased tracks spanning 27 years. The most recent release was the 2005 soundtrack to the documentary "No Direction Home."

While there have been some reports that Dylan is working on a follow-up to "Modern Times," a Columbia spokesman said "Tell Tale Signs" is the focus for now.

Dylan, meanwhile, will begin a monthlong North American tour in Philadelphia on August 8.